Rebranding the Oil Sands

Without concrete action, efforts to portray Canada as a clean energy superpower are likely to fail
In January 2011, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed his fifth environment minister in five years. Peter Kent immediately declared that oil from Alberta’s oil sands was “ethical.” Echoing Ezra Levant’s argument that Canadian oil was ethical because proceeds strengthened Canadian democracy and society and did not support tyranny or injustice,1 Kent vowed to confront “the slander and disinformation of outright lies” about the oil sands.